Fishermen Returns to PEBA with Stadium Expansion

After a great final season in the WIL, Fishermen followed along the New Jersey Hitmen in their triumphant return to the most prominent baseball league of the world. While the New Jersey Hitmen had focused their attentions on acquiring talents – some of them from the Fishermen – and restructuring their staffs, Fishermen seemed to be taking an economizer approach this year. There’s no denying that clubs in the league are there to make money, especially from the owner’s perspective, but the fans might have a different viewpoint. They want their team to win the ring, and for the city of Gloucester to become the City of Champions. They aren’t there to watch boring baseball, so trying and expanding the stadium and not putting up a team to play high-tier baseball seems to be trying on both sides at once.

“The fans know what they are buying into. We have many long-term fans who know how the sport works and are very loyal to the team. There are multiple teams that re-enter the PEBA before us, and they have no problem filling out their stadium and convincing their fans to come and enjoy the show. If you aren’t convinced yet, look at the European sports league with relegation and promotion. Everyone’s happy to go and cheer for the team on the season they just got promoted. The team is merely fighting to get out of immediate relegation on their first season at the higher league at the tail end of the standing, and the fans have no issue at all with that, and they absolutely love to watch it live. I see this expansion as a great financial decision, especially in the long term. There’s no way for us to expand too many seats at once, but we are looking to eventually build into a huge stadium to support more and more fans in the future when our team becomes more popular in time.” claimed one of the Fishermen’s financial advisors.

Whether that is an excellent prediction on how the gate revenue would unfold or merely wishful thinking remains to be seen. One thing that has happened a lot in the history of PEBA is a massive drop in gate performance after a horrible year. Manchester Maulers are certainly one of the best examples of this. Ever since the team returned to PEBA, the gate revenue went down by roughly 50% compared to their WIL day. At the same time, a team like Niihama-shi Ghosts had reported to not only loss but actually profited more from gate revenue in their PEBA years.

One thing was for sure: the Fishermen fans were hyped for this season, as the team had sold more than 20 thousand season tickets — a much higher number than the previous season. Whether the fans can stomach a couple of bad seasons in a row remains the true test of this adventurous move.